figment
by savemesanfransicope
Summary: Due to a traumatic experience, Danny has begun hearing a voice who he can speak to and feel. Fearing his sanity, he's sent away to an asylum, where the owner wants nothing more then to make Danny his. /It's canon characters, but the pairing is a secret, shhh /
1. Chapter 1

_figment_

_by savemesanfransicope_

* * *

The walls are barren, empty. There are no windows, no sunlight. What is sunlight, what does it feel like? He can't remember, no, he doesn't know. There's no memory of sunshine, what it is even. Is it even real? Did he make it up, like the scratches? The deep indents on the wall. He makes them everyday, with torn fingernails (or that's what they used to be, it's some oddly molded skin now) or else, he thinks he does, but when he awakens they're gone. Smoothed over completely by some invisible hand he doesn't see.

_Danny, _a voice calls. It's sad and quiet, yet so similar to his own. He wets his lips, and wonders if he spoken his name, if he's calling himself like the doctor's say. He tries to repeat it, to say something, anything, but he can't get a syllable. He hasn't spoken in so long, he's forgotten how. Is it the tongue that makes the words or the lips? He forms a word, simple and short, 'Hi,' but the sound doesn't come.

_Hello Danny._

Maybe it's his imagination. He doesn't hear anything, nothing at all. It's just him mind playing simple tricks, one after the other, trying to drag him down, trying to get him to admit he's crazy.

_Why don't you talk anymore, Danny?_ The air around him shifts, a soft wind hits his face, not unlike those paper fans his sister (a name, uncommon, but popular among story tale characters. Aurora, no, like that though), used to play with when she was younger. It's light, and soft, but strange. The door, if you could even call it that, remains locked at all times from the outside. Danny's not even sure how they open it. The doctors come to him. He wakes up and they're there. He knows they slip things to him, through liquids and food. They're worried he'll run, given the chance. Danny doesn't know if he'd bolt. He used to think of running, but now it seemed so fruitless. Nothing would come of it, they'd catch him before he could turn a hallway, if there were even hallways in this place. Or corners for that matter, but it seemed unlikely, 'no place to hide,' being the usual asylum motto.

_They'd find you_, the voice deadpans, slightly louder. Danny can hear the frown in the tone. He knows it can read his mind, maybe it not so many words, but it has a knack for guessing along the lines of what he's thinking, and sticking a giant pin into it. _They'd hurt you Danny. They hurt you very badly._

The word 'enough' forms on Danny's lips, because that's as much as can hear, but he doesn't say it. He rolls over on the thin mattress, taking the thin blanket with him. 'No comfort when you're enemy number one, eh?' he wants to snort, but doesn't even bother trying to convey the message. Beside him, Danny watches as the mattress deepens as an invisible weight is added. He tries to turn his attention away, tries to ignore the evidence, but he can't. They can't see it, even when it's right in front of them, the evidence, the sounds. They don't see, don't hear.

'Are you even real?' Is the question that bubbles in his throat, sitting like a lump, choking him, 'Do you even exist? Did I just make you up, like they said?'

He feels limbs around his body, and every so slightly he can see the cloth around his form being pushed down. But there's no other evidence of anyone else. Is anyone even touching him? Is anyone even there?

_I'm here Danny, I'm always here. _


	2. Chapter 2

Danny wasn't always like this.

He didn't always hear this voice, these sounds, this other heart beating in time with his. At one point, he was _normal_. He was able to converse with others, and be loud, and sing, and laugh, and do other things that children his age did. And then it just stopped. Just like that, as if someone had flipped a switch from on to off. And no one could understand why. There were strange things he would do, just stare off into space, his mouth moving, but no words coming from it, or they would find him alone in his room, surrounded by his toys now with broken wheels and torn arms. And when they asked how it happened, he wouldn't say a word.

"Danny," his mother would say, her voice nervous and slow, as if she were unscrambling every word before she spoke it, "Danny, what happened to your toys?"

The little boy, with hair dark and unruly, and eyes blue, but now unfocused and glazed, would just shrug and turn away, dismissing them. His family tried to engage him, through love (his mother) and through food (his father), and just through plain speech (his sister). But Danny wouldn't respond to any of them.

"He was like a doll," the young woman murmured, pulling her red hair back into it's usual ponytail, "you could fold him any which way you wanted to, but he never responded or reacted back."

The other members, all in short uncomfortable folding chairs murmured their agreement, some yawning as they were bored beyond belief and had been there for far too long. Family Day wasn't favorable among asylum patients, nor their relatives, though the majority of the sane tried their best to be polite, despite the many relatives that took their sweet time telling their stories and dissecting their emotions. Jazz pulled the pale headband back up onto her head over the ponytail, and continued, "Anyway, I apologize for it just being me today. My parents couldn't make it."

"They haven't been here in quite a while have they?"

Jazz raised her head, and turned her attention to the main that had addressed her. He was dressed in a long white lab coat, which floated behind him like a cape. His hair was long, and aged. What had once been black she guessed, had faded to a soft grey. His eyes were hard and cold, but his mouth was twisted into an inviting smile. A large pin over his chest pocket declared his name, but she couldn't really read the small type and didn't bother to try. He was the leader of their little group, always was, but he barely spoke, letting the relatives rants and complaints about their patients take up the hour. It was easy to overlook him, but at that thought he really wasn't too favorable in Jazz' book. _Isn't the point of this group to learn how to understand? _She wanted to ask him. _Shouldn't we be accepting our patients instead of shunning them in front of their peers? _Instead she calmly replied, "Well yes, but they're very busy being scientists an' all." Her voice trailed off at his expression. His smile had flipped, and his eyes narrowed at the excuse, the same expression Jazz had worn that very morning when her parent's had relayed the message to her.

"And it's not like we actually get to _see _Danny when we're here," she added in a last ditch attempt.

The man's eyes, a deep bloody color, narrowed at this response and retorted simply, "He's dangerous. We wouldn't want to harm the other patients and their loved ones, now would we?"

Did she imagine it, or did everybody just scoot his or her chairs away a bit? But anyway, Jazz sighed, and shrugged her sweatshirt over her shoulders, "Look I believe in therapy as much as you. It helps, I get that-"

The man rolled his eyes and stood, "Jasmine where are you going? We're not done yet."

"-but Danny's been here a long, _long _time," she adds, pulling up her hood without another glance at the assembled group, "and he hasn't gotten the least bit better. So whatever you're doing, or whatever you _think_ you should be doing, do it. Fix my brother. And then get back to me."

And with that, the girl stepped out of the small building and into the evening.

* * *

_Jazz and Danny interaction coming upppp. R&R maybe? ;)_


	3. Chapter 3

The air cuts through her thin sweatshirt like a knife, but she doesn't look back.

Jazz wraps her arms around her torso in hopes of keeping in what little warmth her body provides. It's only early November, but small flakes of snow have begun to float down from the clouded sky. _Danny would've loved this_, the girl murmured, smiling sadly as she caught flakes in her open palms. She remembered the rosy-cheeked child with the long black hair and short stubby legs who'd push her over into snow banks, until she taught him how to make snow angels. She trudges through the low banks, making small footprints in the slush. The asylum was split into three pieces, the smaller building, reserved for paperwork and the weekly family session sat closest to the tall iron gates that opened into the property. Back behind this smaller building was the main building, quite large, and home to the cafeteria and those patients on good-behavior (and somewhat sane, or safe to be around). And then, even farther back, just on the edge of the small pines that surrounded the area was a tall two level apartment-like structure. Though plain and vague from the outside, within the walls, the walls were barren and bleached, the tillers immaculately clean, and not a pointy object within a five mile radius, save a couple of emergency needles safely hidden away from prying eyes.

It was here, high up on the second level that Danny lay with his back against the wall. The wall that wasn't so bleached anymore. Danny smiled as he looked up at his masterpiece. Across the bleached surface, were squiggles upon squiggles of color; blue airships battling one another for control of the orange planet below, red flowers with purple stems, and of course a little green puppy dog. Danny marveled at the crayons in his hands. He hadn't seen the drawing instruments in forever, or to be more specific, since before he was declared insane. Here, they were contraband (really was there anything a patient _wouldn't _put in their mouth and/or use as a weapon?) and deemed to dangerous for patients.

But that didn't explain how they ended up on his bed. Just sitting on his pillow, as if they'd been there the whole time.

_Do you like them?_

Danny jumped at the sound. His head made a sickening crack when it collides with the wall, but he says nothing. He should've known.

The crayons roll in his palm, and he holds them above his head accusingly. 'Is this some kind of sick joke?' he wants to ask, but settles for glaring straight and ahead, and hoping that's where it's coming from.

_Are you still angry Danny?_

.

"That was a good session, Mister Masters."

The man with the hard red eyes, now weary from strain of the last half hour, smirked down at the stout woman before him. Around them other relatives and their patients bustle about, folding chairs and making light conversation (save the patients, the majority of which refuse to talk at all).

Mister Masters lifts the corners of his lips at the woman before him, though it's painful as he's been doing it for the majority of the day, "Why yes, I would say so. Full of entertainment at the least."

The woman's face contorts into a sort of grimace when she says, "Well yes, but that Fenton. Hm. The whole lot of then worries me. Especially with that spot of it today."

"Just a little stress my dear," remarks the man, taking her chubby fingers in his. He's tall and lean. His fingers are like bones in hers, but she doesn't remark and neither does he. A strong impulse rushes through her body, and for a moment, it feels as though she's working on autopilot. Her eyes go cloudy, and her shoulder's shrug forward, her grip is weak.

"Well, thank you again for the session."

"It was indeed my pleasure."

He watches as the woman wraps an arm around a sulky young patient and drags him out the door behind her. Vladimir shakes his head with a smirk, some we're too easy.

He pulls the long white coat tighter around his body, and heads for the door, dipping his head to the secretary as he passes. Only one more thing to do before he can retire tonight, and before the real entertainment begins.

* * *

.

The crayon thing will make sense next chapter ;) I promise.

Oh, and thank you to my two reviewers, you make me feel awesome ;-;


	4. Chapter 4

'I'm alone.'

It's the first thing Danny notices when he awakens. How long had he been out? And… _why_? Usually he was given a little more warning then that. He hadn't eaten anything (their usual means of getting _it _in him), and he hadn't felt the pressure of a needle, besides needle fluid usually took a little longer to knock him out. Maybe a dart?

But no, that seemed wrong too. They haven't used a dart on him a long time. They know what it does to him, what it makes him see. But maybe-

Danny let's out a breath when he realizes he's in his room. So that wasn't today? No, he wouldn't be here, unsupervised if it had been _that. _But what else explained it.

_Perhaps you were tired._

Danny whips head from side to side, the air snapping as it passes his ears. A growl starts in the low of his throat, and despite better judgment, he lets it gain strength. He lets it grow louder. And then he can hear it. It's not tiny anymore, it's grown, loud and audible, it's a sound. A real, live sound.

The voice gives a low whistle, as if it too is impressed.

_I didn't know you had that in you._

Danny tenses, his shoulders grow rigid, and back straight. The moment vanishes in a blink, and the usual Danny is back. The light that seemed to pull back the fog, retreats and the curtain falls once more.

_I'm sorry, have I bothered you?_

Danny starts to shake his head, but stops, and then nods. Yes. But that hadn't always been the answer.

_So I'd take it you didn't like my present then? _The voice has softened, sounding almost hurt. But Danny shakes his head again, it's just more mind games, he knows it. It's done this before.

'Go away,' Danny thinks, and a cold feeling envelops him for a moment, numbing the boy's thoughts and original plan for resistance. It feels like arms wrapping around his body, a torso pushing into his body, and then disperses.

'Well fuck, Danny huffed to himself, 'It _hugged_ me again.'

.

The walls are tall and painted a brilliant baby blue. The color's nice, not too bright, or too deep and ugly, like the weird green in the social studies classroom. He remembers liking the blue and telling the teacher so, even when she later replied that it was the wrong shade, and that the sun reflected off it the wrong ways, and who named it royal blue, when it was more teal than anything?

He remembered her always being like that. Always say things (anything, a piece of clothing, a paint color, a _person_) were just a shade off, just a little off, making the whole piece wrong.

But Danny thought she was wrong. He thought the snow reflected nicely through the windows in the winter, making the walls come alive as if they we're some sort of forest, and the walls were the sky. He had other children that would nod, and say, 'oh yeah Danny, I see that.' Smile. He remembered the smiles, and the warmth he'd felt in that classroom. The idea of maybe finding friends.

_You Daniel, are like the wallpaper. _Her voice was stern, and hoarse. Wrinkled fingers reach for a brush, and for a moment Danny wondered if she'd paint over the whole thing, just to prove him wrong. But instead of dipping the bristle into paint, she pokes the end through the wall with a forceful crack. The children around him gasp, and some poke his arms and whisper. _You are thin in the head, not right. But you can be fixed. Painted over the right color._

Danny tightens his fist around the crayons and their nubbed ends. The walls before him are whitewashed. He can smell the faint fumes, and wonders how long he's been out.

'_You can be fixed. Painted over the right color.'_

But no amount of white-wash could seem to cover him.

* * *

.

_Hopefully this isn't too confusing. _

_Now who do we know who feeds off of the misery of young children? It begins with an S._

_Thank you for the reviews, you're all so _awesome._ ;-;_


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